When is it okay to pass little Jimmy the Gears of War?

I agree with the LEGOs aproach. By which I (depending on how aggresive my offspring is) will let them play Halo games, but no Grand Theft Auto until you are atleast 17(ish).

I would simply go by the ratings system myself. That is what it is for and if you don't want your 7 year old screaming "Ahhhh bitch owed me money" ala Rainbow 6 Vegas all over the house then keep it away from them. I'm sure some younger, brighter kids could handle it and understand it is just a game but that's up to the parents to know. Fortunately if you poke around enough in the options you can turn down the language or keep it clean on many games. Of course there is still the exploding heads in Gears to deal with!

I don't think the games are the problem now but the people online. For example: just the other day I was playing in a game hosted by like a five or six year old. And this one asshole started making obscene comments to him. The one that really got me was when he said this-
"Hey make u die, ask your mom if I can touch your penis." I would of told him off but I didn't have a mic with me. sure enough he got booted.
*make u die was the five or six year olds screen name.

i say depending on the maturity level of my children they may be allowed to play somethin like GTA at 15.

NEVERRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Damn, that girl means business!

My little girl is 7 now and she loves playing GTA (and its clones), but not so much for story or running around and shooting. She plays it as Simpsons Hit & Run with better graphics. She knows it is all pretend just like movies and cartoons. There is really nothing that is in GTA that isn't in Die Hard or any other number of action movies.

I'm more concerned with teaching her to be a good sport and be willing to try try again when she crashes.

She also thinks it is very funny to find new ways to kill me when I walk away from a game.

Now I will do the mandatory showing of pictures of my offspring. Pictures of Ivy

It's not terribly hard to gauge a kid's maturity if you spend plenty of time with them. I know plenty of people 17+ years old that shouldn't be allowed to play GTA, and I also know teens and preteens that can handle and enjoy (for all the right reasons) any M-rated game.

My oldest son is 7. He has a Wii, and loves it. I started with an NES when I was his age, and have a blast playing VC games of the past with him. I on the other hand, have a 360 and let him play only certain games. Lego Star Wars, and SOME Arcade games. I only play GoW, COD3, GRAW, Dead Rising, when my kids are sleeping. The only Semi-Violent game I allow him to play/watch is Worms.

P.S. It's great watching the reactions on his face while he's playing on his Wii. I'll bet it's how I looked when I was playing the NES way back when :)

It's different now than when I was young.

Back in the Genesis and PS1 generations, most of the big AAA-quality games were kid-friendly (Mario, Sonic, Spyro, etc). But now, all the big AAA-quality games are "mature" (Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto, etc). Most of the kiddie games are licensed crap based on movies like Madagascar and Cars. Even "mascot" games (like Ratchet and Clank) have either increased to "teen"-rated or become low-budget crap, leaving nothing of quality for kids to play. No wonder kids want to play the mature games... they are the only games worth playing! Nintendo is the only company left still producing kid-oriented games with any quality and effort behind them.

When I eventually have kids, all the games they play will be preplayed by me. So while I may have no issues allowing a 12 year old to play something like MK classics or Tekken, more disturbing games like Silent Hill or Manhunt would wait a while. I think the main problem with the ESRB (but then again, this is all ratings) is that it focuses entirely on the content present and not how the content IS presented. For exactly, Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later both feature the same kinds of content, but guess which one kids should see when they are older?

Well first off you should always regulate the time the kids spend playing videogames no matter how old they are (well, up to the point where they start not taking any orders anymore ;D). If you really have to give a minor access to a console then at most for a couple of hours a week. Games that are non-violent or increase brain activity (puzzle, quiz, strategy games) I'd surely let kids play things like Nintendogz or similar. When it comes to games like FPS and or strategy games that depict violence then I'll go with a pretty rough policy: If they're old enough to be interested in sex they're old enough to be interested in virtual violence and alike. Still parents should at least ask their kids what they're playing and talk to them about the things that they might see (same goes for the internet). Sure that's hard (especially for the annoyed kids that have to talk about embarassing things to their parents) but the only way to provide a sufficient buffer of knowledge and understanding to cope with the strange modern culture. I can say from my own experience that you'd definitely need some smart friends to be able to understand and deal with all weirdness.

I babysit my little niece alot and when she is over I NEVER play Gears of War or any type of violent game..5 minutes of Gears would give her nightmares for 2 weeks and I couldn't have that on my conscience..When she is around its strictly sports games...When I have kids, I will let them play violent games when they become of age to recognize right from wrong...I was playing violent games since I was 8 or 9, I am 26 now...My parents instilled the line between fantasy and reality on me at an early age...People should not allow games to teach their children the difference between right and wrong, thats the PARENTS job...SO when your kid does something fucked up and says, "I saw it in a game", ask yourself, what were YOU doing when your child was playing this game...

I have two kids of my own, one of which is actually capable of playing games, while the other still craps its own pants. The capable one plays whatever games she wants, to a degree. I tend to look at it with a realistic approach. If she experiences at school, then she can play it online. The majority of that is Halo right now as she obviously won't be playing "Adult Only" titles. She's wanted to play Manhunt, but I decided against that as well. In a nutshell, I figure if she can't handle the reality check of what is real and what isn't, then I have more issues with her dealing with real life than I have with her playing video games. I think everyones situation is unique to their own families and environment and not everyone is going to be covered by on blanket guideline.

Um, there's one large flaw in that point. We're GAMERS. Meaning we're nerds. Which means that we don't have girlfriends. Which means that we don't have children.

@14 Speak for yourself man...don't include me in your troubles

If I had a kid and they wanted to play Gears of War or Halo or GTA or something, I wouldn't be so concerned about the content so much as their tastes in games. I mean, seriously, at this point I would have Metroid just lying around, why wasn't he allready be playing that? Or Rez. Or something...

You people make me sick.

How many times has it been said here on joystiq that video games have no effect on behavior. I thought it was just those stupid politicians with a motive that said video games effect children. If thats the case, what difference does it make when you let children start playing M rated games?

It's not that video games have no effect on children... All media that a person consumes effects them, ESPECIALLY as a child.

What has been stated repeatedly and can be pretty well verified with science is that violent video games do not make normal, well-balenced children suddenly violent psychopaths. First of all, children are inherantly somewhat violent... do you even remember elementary school? Secondly, good parents will have been reinforcing the difference between fantasy and reality from the moment they started understanding language... A normal 10 year old child SHOULD be able to play Grand Theft Auto and come out of it 1) Somewhat desensitized to violence and 2) Cussing like a sailor. But they won't just go out and start killing people.

I'm not sure about the games now like gears and GTA, but I know back when I was a kid (early n64 - 17 yr old now) my parents were fine with playing goldeneye and didn't complain what game I bought. Back then though I guess games may have been easier to get kids since graphics weren't as realistic and didn't show blood. As a kid I was more interested in racing games than shooters anyway.

If I had a kid now, I'd buy him/her a ds when they'd be about 8. Simple reason being its closest to the gameboy start I got at that age, and I'd encourage my kid to play new smb and then to let them get some action strategy advance wars if they so wished. I'd not mind them getting metroid prime hunters even. Wouldn't get them a 360 or ps3 because of the violence in some games and the fact I'd want to play wii when they'd go to bed.

When I have kids (hopefully NOT soon) they won't be playing anything with any sort of gun until they're six or seven and then it will be the cutesy cartoon guns that shoot boxing gloves and the like. Nothing bloody until high school, even if it's green blood.

But, when they're old enough, I will personally buy my kids something nice and bloody (but no crime/evil games ever. They'll have to buy that stuff on their own.) and we'll sit down together and I'll hose them.

There was a lot of talk about how to control kids' gaming in the article but I hope most gamer parents don't forget to SHARE gaming. That's a great way to bond and I don't see a lot of gamer parents who actually do that.

When I have kids, they'll be playing video games from birth on. In fact, I'll probably give them extra violent video games while they're still young and impressionable.

I have a 7 y/o boy that I try to keep from seeing me watch GoW but he's walked in on me trying to sneek a round here and there. He censored himself. Didn't like the blood and gore. 4 months later he's a bit curious about it and I finally let him watch me play GoW and Crackdown. He get's that it's fantasy and not reality. Crackdown is so cartoony that I'm not too concerned. I'm still not sure about GoW so I still limit how much he get's to see. He actually asked me to play once and I had to shut him down. I'm not sure if it's that HE'S not ready or I'M not ready for him to go around blasting and chainsawing people....even if it's just a game.

Luckily he's far more interested in Viva Pinata or Animal Crossing. He's also deep into Sonic and Lego Star Wars.

My 6 year old brother plays GTA with no problem... hehe I had to explain "It's ok, sometimes it's *ok* to shoot police officers"

I'm 17 now and as I have been growing up my older brothers would always bring home the games and I would get to play them far earlier than my parents would let them. Now that I think about it, I've been orcs and ree yees zince I was 7 and it hasn't done anything negative to me. But I probably won't let my kids play anything violent or Halo/GoW-like 'till late middle school.

My two little sisters are 10 and 12 years old. I let them play some M-rated games, but not many.

A game like Halo is violent, but doesn't glorify it. A game like San Andreas or Gears does. So I let the kids play Halo 2 (online, but no mic support or player-chat through the speakers. those people are nasty) but not something like I mentioned above.

However, anything with sex or explicit mention of sex is not allowed.. at all. That's the kind of thing that could really mess up a kid. A kid could beat up another kid on the playground; that's violence and it exists for all ages. Sex is something that kids/teens discover "waiting in the wings" of their growth and development. Its something that if brought out too early could really really do some serious damage.

I've pretty much been following the Lego route without even knowing about the Lego route.

My 5-year old pretty much understands that there are "Daddy" only games that he doesn't get to play or watch Daddy play. And he seems to be fine with that as long as he gets to play Marvel Ultimate Alliance, MLB2K7, Viva Pinata, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

For me, content won't matter as much as partaking in useful activities. If my children are knocking off a novel every month or 2 during the school year, they aren't touching Sly Cooper or Ninja Gaiden.

You know, you can mix those two. A lot of RPGs have a rather large amount of reading in them. Hotel Dusk is a book in its own right from what I hear.

lol my daughter is just like her daddy, and she loves playing video games. I learned that she was now capable of understanding the controls, when I went to check the mail, and came back to my 5 year old chasing down vietnamewe in Merecenaries, jumping over obstacles, firing and all. LOL

Of course I don't let her play games like that. Right now her favorites are Dinosaurs for Dreamcast, Kirby on virtual console and Wii Boxing. Supposedly I am buying the pokemon game that is coming out on wii as well. She let me know that I had to get that one.

:) I want my daughter to play games, and I'll encourage it, but I certainly won't have her playing violent games until she is mature enough to handle it. Granted, I was playing "violent" games by the time I was 10 (or maybe younger), but there is a big difference between getting eaten by an 8 pixel version of Jaws on my NES and splattering citizens across the road in GTA.

I'm just going to pretend I care whether my kids play violent and sexual games. But once they're old enough to go behind my back to get the more adult games, they're old enough to play them.

I'd be a hypocrite if I denied my kids the same types of violent games that I used to sneak to my friends place to play as a child.